Air France creates new low-cost airline

Air France has won the support of the biggest pilots’ union, SNPL, to create a low-cost airline. “Boost” will be launched in the autumn, using pilots on the same salaries as at Air France. Pilots approved the move by 78.2 percent with a turnout of almost 83 percent after several months of talks.

But while the pilots at Boost will not suffer from a reduction in salaries, cabin crew will be hired at a lower cost, Air France said on Monday, July 17. Air France has suffered a series of pilots’ strikes that have cost the airline millions of euros in lost revenues.

Air France plans to launch Boost in the fall on medium-haul and then in the summer of 2018 on long-haul flights, with the objective of maintaining routes currently running at a deficit on Air France and adding new ones.

The pilots’ union said it welcomed the “realisation of months of negotiation. We hope this agreement will create a dynamic of confidence, a prerequisite for preparing for the reforms of our company and thus successfully confronting competition.”

[caption id="attachment_21112" align="alignleft" width="342"] Photo: Twitter Vinci Autoroute[/caption]
Motorway operator Vinci Autoroutes has warned of exceptionally heavy traffic on the last weekend of the school holidays. The A8 motorway between Aix-en-Provence and the Italian border is going to be packed from late morning Saturday September 2, until early evening Sunday September 3.
While motorists will be able to avoid the worst of the heavy traffic be setting off very early or very late in the day, Vinci has also said that it will be able to inform drivers of real-time conditions via its Twitter account (@Vinci Autoroutes) with maps of journey times posted every two hours.
"At a glance, online users will be able to visualise the travel time on the main axes of the network,” Vinci communicated. However, conditions can change quickly, especially in the event of accidents, and Vinci’s Twitter helper will remain only a forecast.

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[caption id="attachment_5169" align="alignleft" width="300"] Head of Monaco Tourist and Convention since 2011, Mr Guillaume Rose[/caption]
Monaco is seeking investments from Indian entrepreneurs to set up hotels to boost its growth in tourism sector.
“We are open for investment from Indian players to set up 3-star hotels for our booming tourist destination,” Monaco Tourist and Convention head, Mr Guillaume Rose, told The Times of India in Mumbai.
“We are also looking at growth in IT, green industries and telecom sectors with partnership from leading IT companies from India,” he said. Monaco has registered a strong growth in banking, finance, real estate and tourism sectors over the past few years, Rose added.
Monaco hosts over 700 international level events around the year and earlier this year partnered with Fashion Designer Sanjay Garg’s Show at Lakme Fashion Week.
The Principality is also seeking to attract Indians to hold weddings in the country. To this end Monaco Tourism partnered with India’s first-ever wedding destination show, Indian Wedding Travel Mart in July as one of the lead country partners.